Jason Isbell chose to spend Valentine's Day working in Reading with his wife.

A wise choice, indeed.

The singer/songwriter; his sweetheart, fiddlist/vocalist Amanda Shires; and the rest of the 400 Unit entertained a packed Santander Performing Arts Center on Wednesday.

The Alabama native's music is classified as alt-country or Americana, and Isbell's 100-minute set encompassed a number of styles within that umbrella. A few songs were rustic, laden with acoustic instruments. Others rocked hard, resembling 1980s Bruce Springsteen or a Lindsey Buckingham-led Fleetwood Mac song, Isbell's slide guitar solos and Shires' piercing fiddle adding an exclamation point to the arrangements.

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The 39-year-old broke out with alt-country mainstays the Drive-By Truckers. (He paid tribute to that era of his career on Wednesday with a rousing rendition of "Decoration Day," a song he wrote and performed with the group.) Since leaving that band a decade ago, he's cleaned himself up, gotten married and ascended the ranks of singer/songwriters.

Last year's "The Nashville Sound," his sixth studio release, was a critical and commercial smash, winning multiple Grammy Awards at this year's ceremony.

Backing quintet the 400 Unit came onboard for Isbell's sophomore album and have remained. The group, introduced one by one between songs throughout the evening, is a perfect fit, and the joy its members get from making music together was infectious.

Fittingly, the Valentine's Day show closed with "If We Were Vampires," a love song lamenting but accepting the role mortality plays in a relationship.

"If we were vampires ... I wouldn't feel the need to hold your hand," Isbell sang. "Maybe time running out is a gift."

Veteran singer/songwriter James McMurtry kicked things off with 45 minutes of well-received Americana.

Backed by his longtime trio, McMurtry, 55, offered up straight-ahead selections from his 30-year career, the mostly midtempo story songs punctuated by crisp guitar solos or shaded with accordion, tied together by his world-weary voice and jangly rhythm guitar.

"This one got me a mention in the failing New York Times," he said before performing "Copper Canteen," a song from his most recent album. "That makes me an active participant in the fake news media. Or what we used to refer to in this country as the free press."